Trial and Mostly Error
by UumRonin
Summary: Tony is working on a new experiment and Clint wound up being his lab rat. In attempts to alter sleep patterns, Stark finds that messing up Barton's mind is a bad move. Mostly centered around Iron Man and Hawkeye with a fair dose of the team as well. Days, nights, bruises, and Clint whump.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Go!"

"Go where?"

"Dive, now!"

"Dive?!"

"Yes, dive!"

Pepper ducked behind a nearby desk and covered her head with her hands, mouth agape at whatever she was mixed up in this time.

Tony stood at the other end of his lab, shielding his torso with dinged up sheet of scrap metal. As he instructed Pepper to hide, an explosion erupted in the middle of the room complimented with a flash of intense light. The building shook and several beakers from the tables danced off the edge and onto the floor. A few seconds of silence from a stunned Ms. Potts and from Tony who knew he was about to be in some trouble.

"Tony!" Pepper stood up and folded her arms across her chest.

Rogers and Banner charged in, soon followed by Romanoff.

"What was that?" Steve scanned the room, his gaze falling onto Tony whom he presumed was behind the commotion.

"Science!" Tony let go of the tin and it dinged to the floor. "Pure science!"

"Science is no excuse for bringing the building down." Banner piped up, his arms also folded across his chest.

"Not quite but soon it will be that powerful." As Tony spoke, one of the cleaner robots began sweeping up the broken glass into a dustpan, twitching while it worked.

"What are you even working on?" Natasha looked around the room and couldn't put together an experiment from the various chemicals and compounds and materials scattered everywhere.

"I'm attempting to reinvent the way humans react to light by recreating an interactive hologram representing the sun that-…"

"English?" Steve piped up.

Tony sighed, "I'm making a sun to see if I can change the way people sleep."

"Why?"

"Because I find it interesting that we sleep at night when at night our senses adjust to be at their strongest. Also, if I can do this then I could market it as a device that helps people sleep as well. Anything else, Stars and Stripes?"

"Sir, dinner is ready," everyone looked up as JARVIS spoke. Bruce and Natasha wasted no time in heading for the door.

The kitchen they ate in was one of the two big ones that shared space with a central living room, separated by the differences in flooring.

Tony typically sat at one head of the table and Steve at the other. The others chose a seat and stuck with it ever since. Since Clint was the last to move in, he got the seat across from Natasha and next to Tony, which was always an interesting place to be.

"Where's our feathered friend?" Tony asked, sawing into a piece of steak.

"Asleep, isn't he?" Bruce took a gulp of wine. It wasn't easy eating for two people, especially when one of those people was monstrous and weighed a ton. It seemed like he was never full.

"He never sleeps. Like, ever."

"That is weird, even for him," said Steve.

In his room, Clint sat on the balcony outside of his room, looking down at the city below. He knew he was distanced from the others on the team. After Loki and Thor left for Asgard, he should have left too. The only person who remembers he's there half the time is Natasha. And even that was a touchy subject.

_Sigh_, he let out. The setting sun reflected off of nearby windows and lit up the white paint on the balcony. Then, he smelled food.

As if on cue, he walked in as the team was discussing his whereabouts. The group fell quiet, as if they felt bad for talking about him behind his back. Clint pulled out his chair beside Tony and took a big gulp of wine. As he put his glass down, he felt many eyes watching him.

"You guys should watch TV or something. 's more interesting." He took a bite of his food.

"Where have you been all day?" Natasha wasn't afraid of being direct with Clint, which was a good and a bad thing. Sometimes, it's best not to pry and, well, she likes to pry.

"Out."

Unsatisfied with his response, she decided to give up.

"Well as comfortable as you all are being right now, let's talk about me."

"There's a change," Banner laughed and Rogers joined him.

"Oh, I forgot we were dining with two infamous comedians tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, please, let us welcome to the table the Green Smurf and Star Spangled Banner," Tony began clapping his hands slowly and Natasha hid that she was laughing. She looked up at Clint and he was starting to smile as well.

"Now, for my experiment you all witnessed earlier I'm going to need a test subject once I get the calibrations correct."

"You think testing an explosive, unprepared mixture of chemicals on a bunch of super humans is a good idea?" Banner shot a serious look at Stark. He didn't need any more tests and experiments in his life.

"I figure anyone can be a test subject."

"What are you all talking about?" Clint looked up, unaware that Stark was wanting to essentially screw up human sleep patterns for fun.

Stark smirked and folded his hands together on the table. Steve shook his head, knowing what Tony was about to say.

"I think I've found my test subject."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"I still don't understand what you're doing here," Clint swung his legs that dangled off of the end of a medical bed in Stark's lab. The air was cold as usual and small goose bumps danced up his arms.

"I've explained this to you at least seven times. You should see someone about your hearing." Tony gathered some tools, which was a frightening scenario in general, and put them on a table that he wheeled next to Clint. "Give me your arm."

"Why?" Barton retracted his arm and held it close to him, protectively.

"Because I need a sample of your blood to test and to note any changes that happen while the experiment undergoes. Now, arm." Tony moved in closer, but Clint leaned back further.

"Why would something in my blood change? You're just messing with my sleep."

"Look," Stark waved the syringe around like it wasn't a sharp medical instrument, "I can sedate you if you'd prefer but I'm sampling your blood before we begin. So stop getting your feathers in a bunch and give me your arm."

Clint finally submitted, knowing there was no way Stark got around getting what he wanted. The sharp point of the needle took what it wanted and was removed, which felt like being stabbed in reverse.

Tony grabbed some sticker sensors and placed them on Clint's wrist, two on his chest, two on his stomach, and one on his neck. The wires trailing from them fed into a little box with a tiny monitor that, once Stark turned it on, displayed Clint's pulse and body temperature.

"Now, I'm going to need you to relax. Okay? No springy jumpy attacky assassin stuff. You're here, you're safe, and you're fine." His subject nodded in understanding as Tony stored Clint's blood in a test tube on the desk and wheeled over a different table. This one had an orb of some kind resting on a small set of pedestals and a remote that Clint assumed Stark would be controlling.

"I'll explain it again, it's very simple. I'm going to expose you to a concentrated level of elements and vitamins that we obtain daily from the sun and its light. However, you will also be exposed to an airborne form of melatonin, which is the chemical in your brain that is released when you sleep. It causes drowsiness and a decrease in body temperature-…"

"Is this safe, Stark? Why should I voluntarily let you jack up my brain?"

"You didn't volunteer. I elected you. And because think of all the resources that will be available after this study proves success: sleep medication, heavier tranquilizers and sedatives, a better understanding of our senses, who knows!"

"I think you've finally gone mad."

"All the best people are," Tony gave a cheeky grin and wheeled the orb in front of Barton. He picked up the remote and stepped behind a glass panel, separating him from anything the orb gave off.

"Ready?"

"Why did I let you talk me into this?"

"I'll take that as a yes."

Clint closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, preparing for whatever was about to happen as Tony activated the orb. A steady glow started forming inside and then grew to a blinding light. The entire room was soaked with eternal whiteness, it was almost deafening. Clint wanted to look so badly. He wanted to know what sheer light looked like but he knew he had to keep his eyes closed.

Stark read his vitals, Clint's heart rate climbing as his body temperature decreased. As long as it didn't reach a dangerously low level he would be fine. Ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit is when hypothermia kicks in, so as long as Clint stays above that he'll be fine. Tony kept reassuring himself of that.

_He'll be fine._

A frequency began letting off in the room, dull at first but enough to notice.

"Tony what's that sound?" Clint shouted, although there was no reason to. It was absolutely silent in the room except for the buzzing frequency that was growing in intensity.

"Probably just the machines feeding off each other. Don't worry. Perfectly harmless." He hoped. Only a few more minutes and the light could be shut off.

Tony watches as Clint's body temperature dropped to ninety-seven degrees, his heart rate alarmingly fast.

"How you holding up?" He shouted, again, for no apparent reason.

Tony couldn't see, but Clint was shaking because of the cold. His arms were trembling the most, his mind blurring as it tried to find a balance between how fast the heart was working to pump blood and how that blood wasn't warming him like it should.

"I think 's workin', Tony," He didn't shout this time. He swayed, clenching the end of the medical bed with both hands in efforts of rebalancing. To no avail, he fell back onto the table as the emissions from the orb stopped and the light started to dim.

The entire time the light was shining, Tony couldn't see anything because of the brightness. It wasn't until the orb had been off for a few moments before the contrast in the room allowed him to see Clint lying on his back.

"Shit."

Lights flashed and beeped on the monitor, the only sounds in the room other than Stark's frantic breathing.

"Hey, Bird Brain, you okay? Come on, wakey wakey," he slapped Clint on the cheek a little. Now he was worried.

Tony darted over to his table, which was cluttered with pieces of equipment and mixed in with all of his medical supplies, not that he was any sort of a doctor. He grabbed a blanket from a shelf and a few syringes, assuming they were what Clint needed.

"JARVIS could you call Banner in here please," he grabbed Clint's shoulders and dragged up to the top of the bed so that he was at least laying on it instead of halfway hanging off.

"Right away, sir."

Bruce and Captain had a deal. One would get their pick of the news in the morning, and the other in the evening. Bruce preferred a more intellectual channel on TV whereas Steve would much rather sit in silence and read the paper. It was a frequently fought battle.

"Doctor Banner, Tony would like your assistance in his laboratory." The voice coming in through the speakers startled both of them as they were settling in on the couches in the living room.

"Oh jeez. Tell me he doesn't need someone to realign his posters at a 'mathematical level' again." Bruce stood up and started making his way downstairs.

"I'm afraid not. Something has gone wrong in his experiment with Agent Barton."

Tony threw the blanket over Clint and starting reading through the injections he was holding.

"Trazadone, Soliris, Xolair, no, no, no…"

Bruce stepped through the sliding doors and did a quick survey of the room before running over to Stark who seemed to be having a difficult time doing anything productive to the situation.

"What's wrong? What happened, Stark, what did you do?" Bruce started looking Clint over, noting what he could: 1, he's unconscious. 2, he's trembling vigorously. 3, his pulse is too fast. 4, God dammit Stark.

"Everything was going fine, then his heart rate climbed and his temperature did the opposite and he passed out-…" Bruce took the syringes from him and fumbled through them.

"None of these will do anything. Do you have some form of antibiotic?"

Bruce took the blanket off and lifted up Clint's shirt to see the sensors, noting that his skin even felt cold to the touch. Barton's chest rose quickly and fell slowly. They needed to figure out a way to help him and fast.

"Here," Tony handed off a new syringe and Bruce immediately injected it into Clint, hopefully bringing some warmth to him from the inside.

The two waited for a few moments, noticing Barton's body beginning to slow it's shaking. Although his breathing remained unbalanced, at least he was warming up.

"Well, what do we do now, doc?" Tony let out a sigh as he slumped down into his chair.  
"We wait until he wakes up," Bruce put his hand on Clint's forehead to feel for another sign of his growing warmth.

"And how long will that be exactly?"

"That's a good question.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

He could feel that the room was big and that there was someone else in it. His muscles were relaxed, cushioned between the padding of a bed and the warmth of a blanket. The air was calm, comfortable even. _Where am I_, Clint thought. What was the last thing he remembered?

He opened his eyes.

Clint was laying in a different bed in a different room with different wires attached to him. He tried to sit up but a delicate hand pushed him back down.

"You're okay, stay still for a while."

Clint looked over and saw Bruce sitting in a chair beside him.

"What happened?" Barton's voice was still very much asleep.

"Stark's little experiment took a toll on you. Your body temperature dropped and your heart rate spiked and with all the melatonin that was being pushed at you, you passed out."

"Wonderful," his glossy eyes blinked slowly, fighting the sleep that was calling out to him.

"You're stable now. We just don't know what the side effects are. That's something Stark should have been a little more prepared for."

"Where is he?" Clint noticed that the science-driven madman wasn't in the room with him.

"He's been at your side since you clonked out. I made him leave a few minutes ago to get something to eat because he hadn't moved from this chair in hours."

"Hours? How long was I out?"

"Almost six hours."

Clint couldn't believe it. _Six hours_ he had been unconscious, and Tony had been waiting for him to wake up the entire time.

"So what happens now? Should I drop the bow and arrow act and become Sleep Man, or something?"

"Well now that you're awake you can be on your way. We'll just have to keep an eye on you. Again, not sure what exactly Stark was expecting from this but I guess we'll wait and see."

"Wonderful."

* * *

That night, the residents of Stark Tower were bored, to say the least. Minutes turned into hours and the hours passed until the early evening settled in. Having feasted on take out, they were all contempt with being absolutely lazy until the next day (or cry from danger, whichever came first).

Overpowering winds and rain outside made things a little more thrilling, but the weather could only provide so much excitement to a group of duty-less superheroes.

The crew lounged in the living room in the middle of the building, which was typically the only place where they all could be seen together. Rogers sat at the bar reading the paper, Romanoff, Stark, and Banner were bantering about something political, and Barton reclined in the softest seat of the sofa. He wasn't much of a social butterfly. Just being in a room with other people was enough interaction for a while.

"How did that go, by the way?"

"My sleeping assassin of the night will be a top notch soldier with medically amplified senses. Thank you for asking."

Barton chimed in to the conversation, hearing Stark mention him.

"Thanks for that, by the way. Waking up in different rooms unaware of how I got there is my specialty," Clint brought his drink to his mouth and took a swig.

He had felt completely fine since Stark's little light show. A little drowsy after leaving the infirmary, but that's how it always is. He couldn't shake the feeling that something about him was…different. He just didn't know what.

Thunder boomed from above and a flash of lightning beamed through the windows.

"Looks like Hell out there," Steve commented, not looking up from his readings as rain beat on the glass.

"Your nest might be soggy for a few days, Feathers," Tony piped up. "Hey, Bird Brain, hello?"

All four teammates looked to the unresponsive agent who sat stone solid, his eyes staring straight ahead.

"Barton?" Banner walked over and waved his hand in front of his face.

"What's wrong?" Rogers stiffened and for the first time in a while took his eyes off of the newspaper.

"I'm not sure. Clint?" Bruce shook his shoulders a little, but the archer remained frozen. Even his hair looked like it was standing still. "Well he's still breathing, so there's a plus. Stark, think this has something to due with your little experiment?"

Tony got up and walked over to Clint and tried shaking him too. Alas, he didn't budge.

Another flash of lightning flared through the room, followed by an applause of thunder. Clint, almost in an instant, snapped out of his unexplained trance and looked at the confused faces of Banner and Stark mere inches from his face.

"What are you two clowns looking at?" Barton pushed them away and started inching his way off of the couch. The two scientists were baffled.

"What the hell?" Stark uttered.

"Barton I think you should sit down," Banner motioned to the couch again as Clint stood a few feet from it, heading toward the door.

"You guys…are…can't…"

Tony watched the archer sway back and forth, trying to catch himself by taking steps in the directions he was falling. Steve sprang from his chair at the last second to catch Barton by his shoulders as he fell to the floor.

"Nice save, Cap. You should play baseball,"

"Shut up, Stark," Steve gently laid Clint's head on the floor and tapped at his cheeks in efforts of waking him up.

"What is up with this guy tonight?"

"Well, Stark, you invaded his body with chemicals earlier today so that might be a start," Banner pushed past Stark and knelt down to their fallen teammate. "He's breathing very deeply," Banner continued.

"Isn't that a good thing?" Natasha appeared at Clint's feet, having been there for a few moments without anyone noticing. Damn assassins.

"Well, yes. But breathing patterns like this only occur when our body is sleeping. If anything, he should be in shock or reacting to the panic of shutting down."

"Melatonin," Tony's arms were crossed as he looked out the window at the storm.

"What?"

"It's the Melatonin. I hit him with a high enough dose and with the addition to recalibrating his senses to light, oh sweet Jesus I've got it," Stark rushed over to Barton and opened his eyes with is fingers, noticing the average-sized pupils. He watched Clint's chest rise and collapse slowly, signaling a deep sleep.

"Stark, you'd better start talking. This is our teammate dammit," Rogers was getting fed up with all of Tony's shenanigans and at no surprise after last week's incident of Iron Man's newest high-powered Taser and his poorly planned decision to test it out on Captain America.

"The light that he was exposed to calibrated the nerves in his brain to react either one or two ways when in contact with bright light or complete darkness, and that's either to fall asleep or wake up," he explained.

"So you're saying that if Barton sees light or darkness, he'll fall asleep if he's awake, and vice versa?" Banner raised an eyebrow to Tony, who seemed to be sure of his words.

"Exactly, and because of the significant dose of Melatonin, whenever he falls asleep it is a very," Tony looked at the completely unconscious archer and his completely unconscious breathing, "very deep sleep. On the couch he must have reacted to the lightning outside, putting him in some sort of unresponsive semi-consciousness and then waking him back up again."

"You have literally lost your mind," Rogers stood up, wiping the stress away from his forehead and sighing as he reached for a glass of water.

"Not entirely. I've just created an uncontrollable sedative for one of the world's best assassins and have no idea how to fix it." He smiled at Steve, who rolled his eyes in return.

"Well, now what do we do?" Banner grabbed a pillow from the couch and placed it under Barton's head. "When does this wear off?"

Tony looked back at the archer and waved his hand in front of him, not expecting any reaction from Clint. He brought his arm back to his side and looked over at Bruce.

"I think I know how to fix this, but you're not going to like it."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"No."

"It's the only way to-…"

"No."

"Banner! Listen to me! This is the only way to fix things!"

Bruce removed his glasses and pinched his skin between his eyebrows. Stark was crazy enough to tamper with one of the world's greatest assassins and now he wants to experiment all over again? _Madman_.

"We don't even know if this will work. And why am I the only one standing up for him?"

"You know I can hear you both, right?" Clint lifted his mug of coffee to his lips and sipped at the steam floating from it. "I'm sitting right here."

Stark and Banner looked over at him and then back at each other, continuing to ignore his existence.

"If you break something, you have to fix it. This," Tony motioned to Clint and held up the paperwork he had scribbled his ideas all over, "is me fixing it."

After Clint's little show the night before, the three Avengers hadn't gotten much sleep themselves while trying to figure out how to revert Barton's sleep patterns back to normal. The following morning, here they were. Another typical day of typical bickering or, as Clint saw it, home.

"We've gone over the formulas. It. Won't. Work." Banner adjusted the glasses back on his face and starting looking over the room for his file of notes. Clint saw them nearby on the table and handed them to him, receiving a faint nod of thanks in return.

The archer's eyelids grew heavy, sinking ever so slightly with each exhale he let out. He felt his shoulders slump forward and guide his body in a leaning tower to the left. If Banner and Stark were paying the slightest bit attention, they would have noticed their subject slipping into oblivion.

"If we spend the next few days getting the kinks out then he can be back to his normal self by Thursday."

Bruce knew that there wasn't much of an option, and so did Clint for that matter. Although this whole experiment deal didn't seem to bother Clint as much as it probably should have. Yeah, he might randomly fall unconscious or wake up in the middle of the night but since it hadn't interfered with any missions he wasn't in too much of a hurry to reboot.

"Hey, you alright?" Bruce stopped conversing with Tony long enough to catch a glimpse at Clint with his head hanging down and his eyes closed. He jerked awake with a, "Hmmf?" not having fallen fully asleep.

Clint lifted his head and met eye contact with both scientists standing across from him, his head heavy. Sleep was calling to him, but he didn't want to answer.

It would be nice to stand up without feeling so lightheaded, he thought. Maybe he wanted a cure for this 'thing' to come quickly after all. His coffee was cool enough to drink in gulps and in several seconds it was gone. Barton stood up to leave and paused to regain his balance.

"Fuck…" he let out softly, grabbing onto the back of the chair for support. He felt Tony's grip on his arm unaware of how he got to his side so quickly.

"Sit down buddy, easy," Tony pushed him back down to his seat but Barton resisted and pushed Stark away.

"I got it," Clint pushed past them both and put his coffee mug in the sink before heading out into the hallway.

"Hey," he stopped to look at his teammates. "Do what you gotta do, alright? Whatever that may be. I'll be fine in the meantime."

Bruce and Tony looked him in the eyes and nodded.

"You'll be alright. Just give us a few days." Banner smiled a little and Clint took that as a good enough time to exit.

"Well at least _he's_ not stressed," Tony said and took a seat at the kitchen table.

"I've got some time before a meeting this afternoon. Let's try and figure out a solution." He took a seat opposite of Tony's and laid his file down with a splat.

"I'm telling you I know what to do. We set him up in my lab, same as before, only this time we hit him with a higher dose of what he had before. Two positives cancel each other out, right? That sort of thing."

"Why does it have to be a higher dose? Wouldn't hitting him with the same amount of melatonin and light balance everything out?"

"Wait…wait hold on a second. Why are we adding things when we should be taking away?"

"Taking away...?"

"Right now he has a massive amount of melatonin and chemicals and nutrients pulsing through him, so adding more to the mix won't help anything. We need a way to revert the process and take away the things we put in."

Bruce thought for a minute and opened his file, pulling out a page with what looked like a four year old scribbled all over and began scribbling down more things.

"I think I see what you're getting at. But how?" He removed his glasses again. It was a true sign that stress had gotten the better of him.

Both sleep-deprived scientists pondered their thoughts for a few moments before Tony stopped twirling his thumbs and looked Bruce in the eyes.

"A magnet."

* * *

Steve watched, as the morning sun grew hotter and ascended higher into the sky, signaling it was probably time to get out of his room and do something more significant.

He checked Barton's room at the end of the hall to see if he wanted to join him at the gym, but the room was empty. Natasha's was too, but that was nothing new. He strolled into the kitchen, feeling the warmth of the sun sitting happily on his shoulders for the day.

"Heya guys!"

"A magnet, huh?" Bruce ignored Steve's warm-hearted greeting and threw a cautious eye at Tony before nodding, "A magnet."

"I'm telling you, it'll work." Tony stood up from the table, leaving his paperwork behind for Bruce to gather up as he followed Tony.

"Fixing up Barton, I hope?" Steve poured himself a cup of coffee and sprang some toast down into the toaster that should have probably been cleaned out or something by now but whatever, he's Captain America.

"I told you I'd come up with something," Tony whooshes his hand in the air and exits with Bruce close behind to tell Clint of their idea.

"He's not in his room, if you're wondering," Steve called after them.

Ignoring Steve, a common occurrence, they headed to Barton's door at the end of a long hallway and found an empty room.

"Huh, where has our little hawk flown away to?"

"Training room?"

They headed down to the massive training gym with mats and punching bags and weights all propped up in the corner next to the giant simulation arena. To no avail, it was empty as well.

"Maybe he left?"

"JARVIS, can you locate Agent Barton please?" Their footsteps clanked up the metal stairs as they headed back to the kitchen. It was very much like Clint to wander off and tell no one, but this wasn't one of the most convenient times for his hiding.

"I told you he wasn't there." Steve munched on his cereal as the two scientists returned.

"I cannot locate Agent Barton, sir." Said the AI through the speakers.

"What? Why not?"

"I don't know, sir. I can tell you that the elevator was last used approximately thirty-seven minutes ago. Perhaps by Agent Barton."

"What floor?"

"Nineteen, sir."

Banner and Stark headed for the nearest elevator, assuming it was the same one Barton had used. Tony didn't know why, but some sort of worry was growing inside of him. Did something happen to Barton? If so, he can only expect another earful from Natasha and Captain Stern-shorts.

"Might as well tag along for the ride." Steve set down his spoon and followed behind.

The three of them waited a few seconds for the elevator to arrive at their floor with a Ding! Bruce reached for the button labeled "19" and paused.

"Woah." Drops and smears of red were over the buttons, the most on the one for floor 19. Trails of blood were also on the inside of the elevator doors that Steve pointed out after they closed, sealing them inside.

"Well that can't be good." Tony looked over at Bruce who put part of his shirt over his finger and used it to push the button. The elevator carried them up to floor 19 where they hoped to find their teammate with some of this red sticky stuff still inside of him where it belonged.


End file.
